A day with Mr. Nandan Nilekani at Escorts!

To become a world class company….The journey first starts in the mind.

We had the pleasure at Escorts of having Mr. #Nandan Nilekani address our top management team! And for the team to hear about his experiences at Infosys, and how they built it from an annual 9 cr annual top line company to a 6 billion dollar company, was truly an inspirational story to hear!

He talked about that the first ten years at #Infosys, when the company struggled to grow beyond 9 cr – 50 cr range. They were the first company to explore with the concept of bringing in customers to India (outsourcing, because technology made it possible) instead of going to them. And how this was an inflection point for their growth.
Few tips which he shared from lessons on building a blue chip organization :-

– Repeat your vision statement – Everyone must know about it and must see their goal post.

– Walk the talk- Take action and let the audience know that you are serious about your mission and vision.

-Set up a large goal and let the organization be focused in detailing it’s implementation.

– To meet these goals, develop the talent.

– The experience that you want to give to your customers, must start with the infrastructure that you build in your company. Infosys built one of India’s most advanced campus to reflect it’s capability to their international clients.

– The senior #leadership team must adapt to changing times. When Infosys was a 10 crore company ” I did things differently and when it was a four billion dollar company I delegated more and developed more talent around me ” said Mr Nilekani. So we must also progress and stop doing what we did and allow others to do what we did before. Changing environment is a role of leaders for their time and in ensuring the readiness of the organization of these changes.

– Setting big goals are important- At #Infosys when we set a target to become a billion dollar company, we were a 200 Cr company. We did a lot of detailing and made our blue print! We were clear about the talent that we needed to develop and we made it happen. In short, your goals must be large….. at Escorts too, we have done the same for our 2020 vision!

The last and the most important advice ” All leaders must spend 40 percent of their time with the customers” he further adds ” I make sure that I know more about my customers than my own sales people about them. And then I ask my sales team to accompany me and then I teach them to how to help our customer meet their objectives. My only aim is to value add and ensure that I can exceed his or her expectations”

An organization can always get busy with many things. A leaders job is to ensure it does with what’s important! Around the customer and not necessary with the operation dialogue!

At the end of the session he talked about his swap to the government, in the cabinet rank to lead the UIC (unique identification code) initiative and it’s mission to hand over 600 million UIC cards by 2014, which they will accomplish. According to him, this is like building the most important infrastructure for our country and once this is done, we can ensure that each individual gets what he must. Right from the subsidy from the Govt, cash less transactions to name a few and as time goes along, they will build more applications to service the citizens.

When the session was over and the Q&A sessions were done, I walked him to his car. He in his most humble expression, looked at me and told me ” Nikhil keep me updated with your progress for Escorts 2020 vision and keep me posted on it” This statement of his left me speechless…. a natural leader who wants to see everyone progress even if it meant he had spent few hours with the company.

Mr. Nandan Nilekani as our chairman said ” is a true leader. A man who does not just dream but believes in putting his dreams into life” that’s what he did when he worked at the corporate and now with the QIC project.
Truly inspirational!!
My aim of sharing this blog is to spread inspiration to all our people at #Escorts and to the world. We take inspiration from the story at Infosys.
And I believe we have our goals set for our 2020 vision… so time to focus and deliver! A determined mind is an inspired mind….
Leaving you with few pictures of the session.

4 thoughts on “A day with Mr. Nandan Nilekani at Escorts!”

Thank for wonderfull posting that u share today,… Longtime u not posting, make us so missing about your writer,.. And iam so glad with succesfull of escort,.. Another great person in behind escort,.. Mr nandan,.. Thanks sir for introduced him to us,… Great story,..make us more passion to do better today and future,..

Story of Infosys is truly inspirational and they brought India on the world map. Their journey inspired many and today India is an outsourcing powerhouse. This is the result of a movement started by Infosys and followed and led by many others. Same is the history of Escorts. They brought a revolutionary movement in engineering and technology and credit goes to great Mr. H.P. Nanda.
Seeing Escorts journey is truly inspirational as well. Not many corporate can claim that that they brought significant changes in the life of a complete city by providing employment and uplifting lives of many and now again it’s time to recreate those moments. May Escorts achieve their Vision 2020, even before 2020.